WTO Significantly Lowers 2026 Global Goods Trade Growth Forecast

The World Trade Organization recently released its latest Global Trade Outlook report, stating that due to factors such as sluggish global economic recovery and U.S. tariff policies, the forecast for global goods trade growth in 2026 has been significantly lowered to 0.5%, a notable decrease from the 1.8% projected in August.

Due to the interdependence between goods trade and production, services trade will also face indirect tariff impacts. The report projects that global services export growth will slow from 6.8% in 2024 to 4.6% in 2025, further declining to 4.4% in 2026.

WTO economists emphasized that the spread of trade restrictions and policy uncertainties across more economies and sectors constitutes a major downside risk.

WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala stated that despite strong headwinds from unilateral tariff measures and trade policy uncertainty, global trade has shown resilience thanks to the stability provided by the multilateral trading system and appropriate responses by members to tariff changes.In the report, the WTO raised its 2025 global goods trade growth forecast to 2.4% from 0.9% in August.

The report indicates that in the first half of 2025, global merchandise trade volumes increased by 4.9% year-on-year, while merchandise trade values, measured in U.S. dollars, rose by 6%. Key drivers of this growth included North America's preemptive expansion of imports to circumvent high tariffs, improved macroeconomic conditions, and surging demand for artificial intelligence-related goods.